"We have the three brands, which I think makes us a little unusual," said owner Hugh Sisson. "It's important, within a certain brand family, that everything is consistent."

Clipper City beers are the most traditional of styles, brewed mainly just for the local market in Baltimore and Washington, D.C.

For the first time, a Clipper City beer the Balto MarzHon, a German-style Oktoberfest lager will be sold in Massachusetts.

That joins the Heavy Seas line of beers, which are higher in alcohol and slightly more experimental and have been on the shelves for years locally.

The Oxford Organic line, just shipped to Massachusetts, is making its way onto liquor store shelves each week.

The MarzHon is a fantastic example of an Oktoberfest lager. It has a nice, full flavor, a little sweet from the malts, and a dark, almost red color.

"That beer's very tasty," said Sisson, who started Maryland's first brewpub in 1989. "That's our foray out of the local market."

The Heavy Seas lineup has been very popular for Clipper City. Whenever a new beer is released, I'm looking for it.

"That's our high-end stuff," said Sisson. "Everything in that portfolio is 7 percent (alcohol by volume) or higher. It has a higher flavor profile. If I could do it with less alcohol, I would, but it's really hard to get that flavor profile without the higher alcohol."

The current seasonal is the Hang Ten, a weizen doppelbock. It's a big, malty beer, weighing in at 10 percent alcohol by volume. This is a beer that will make you feel warm inside.

"It's not a pale wheat beer by any stretch of the imagination," said Sisson. "It's pretty impressive."

The next seasonal to come out (at the end of September) will be the Winter Seas. Sisson said the beer really does not have a defined style, although it recently won the World Beer Cup Gold Title in the International Pale Ale category.

"To be honest with you, I have no idea what an 'international pale ale,' is, but we have the best one in the world," he said. "It's fairly hoppy, with a lot of front end hops."

The Winter Seas is a good complement to the Loose Cannon Hop3 (or Hop Cubed) - which is also heavy on the hops - but, with this beer, you taste the hops at the end of your sip, rather than the beginning.

"Between the two of them, you get a good idea what hops can really do," Sisson said.

The Peg Leg Stout is an 8 percent ABV imperial stout, but different than those popular today, which feature insane amounts of hops making them bitter.

The Peg Leg, Sisson said, is based more on an English-style imperial stout, where the only bitterness comes from the roasted malts.

"There are two schools of thoughts on imperial stouts," said Sisson. "There's a West Coast approach, really massive and intensely hoppy. We didn't want to do that; there is plenty of those. Ours is not a hoppy beer. For those who like a malt-forward stout, people will love that."

Sisson also looked to England for the inspiration for the Below Decks Barley Wine. Again, unlike many American versions of barley wines, Clipper City's leads with the sweet malts and is made to age for years.

The Oxford Organic line has just been shipped to Massachusetts and will make its way onto shelves soon. The beers are currently 100 percent organic (breweries can call a beer organic at 95 percent). The two beers are the amber ale and the raspberry wheat.

"We bought the Oxford line about 12 years ago, and we never really knew what to do with it," said Sisson. "It kind of became that (illegitimate) child it did enough volume for us not to kill it. Then we thought, being organic is the same theory as our brewing, so we thought it would be a really fun thing to do."

Clipper City beers (all three varieties) are available in many areas, including Fannon's Liquors and Kentucky Spirits in Natick, the Wine House in Holliston, Pop 'N' Cork in Mendon, Liquor World in Milford and Franklin, Julio's Liquors in Westborough, Bacon's Liquors in Hudson, Plaza Liquor Mart in Dedham, and Murray's in Newton.